UPDATE (Aug. 2, 2024): A previous version of this story misstated Paul Kinahan’s name.

Fifteen faculty members at the 天美影视传媒 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state . Selection recognizes the new members鈥� 鈥渙utstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥�

Twelve UW faculty members were selected by current WSAS members. They are:

• , associate professor of epidemiology, of health systems and population health, and of child, family and population health nursing, who 鈥減ossesses the rare combination of scientific rigor and courageous commitment to local community health. Identifying original ways to examine questions, and seeking out appropriate scientific methods to study those questions, allow her to translate research to collaborative community interventions with a direct impact on the health of communities.鈥�
• , the Shauna C. Larson endowed chair in learning sciences, for 鈥渉is work in the cultural basis of scientific research and learning, bringing rigor and light to multiculturalism in science and STEM education through STEM Teaching Tools and other programs.鈥�
• , professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, 鈥渇or her sustained commitment to community-engaged, science-driven practice and policy change related to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of mental health, with a focus on providing effective, sustainable and culturally appropriate care to people with serious mental illness.鈥�
• , the David and Nancy Auth endowed professor in bioengineering, who has 鈥渃harted new paths for 30-plus years. Her quest to deeply understand protein folding/unfolding and the link to amyloid diseases has propelled her to pioneer unique computational and experimental methods leading to the discovery and characterization of a new protein structure linked to toxicity early in amyloidogenesis.鈥�
• , professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of global health, and of emergency medicine, who is 鈥渁 global and national leader at the intersection of climate change and health whose work has advanced our understanding of climate change health effects and has informed the design of preparedness and disaster response planning in Washington state, nationally and globally.鈥�
• , professor of bioengineering and of radiology, who is 鈥渞ecognized for his contributions to the science and engineering of medical imaging systems and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies advancing the capabilities of medical imaging.鈥�
• , the Donald W. and Ruth Mary Close professor of electrical and computer engineering and faculty member in the UW Clean Energy Institute, who is 鈥渞ecognized for his distinguished research contributions to the design and operation of economical, reliable and environmentally sustainable power systems, and the development of influential educational materials used to train the next generation of power engineers.鈥�
• , senior vice president and director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Joel D. Meyers endowed chair of clinical research and of vaccine and infectious disease at Fred Hutch, and UW professor of medicine, who is 鈥渋s recognized for her seminal contributions to developing validated laboratory methods for interrogating cellular and humoral immune responses to HIV, TB and COVID-19 vaccines, which has led to the analysis of more than 100 vaccine and monoclonal antibody trials for nearly three decades, including evidence of T-cell immune responses as a correlate of vaccine protection.鈥�
• , professor of political science and the Walker family professor for the arts and sciences, who is a specialist 鈥渋n environmental politics, international political economy, and the politics of nonprofit organizations. He is widely recognized as a leader in the field of environmental politics, best known for his path-breaking research on the role firms and nongovernmental organizations can play in promoting more stringent regulatory standards.鈥�
• , the Ballmer endowed dean of social work, for investigations of 鈥渉ow inequality, in its many forms, affects health, illness and quality of life. He has developed unique conceptual frameworks to investigate how race, ethnicity and immigration are associated with health and social outcomes.鈥�
• , professor of chemistry, who is elected 鈥渇or distinguished scientific and community contributions to advancing the field of electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, which have transformed how researchers worldwide analyze data.鈥�
• , professor of bioengineering and of ophthalmology, whose 鈥減ioneering work in biomedical optics, including the invention of optical microangiography and development of novel imaging technologies, has transformed clinical practice, significantly improving patient outcomes. Through his numerous publications, patents and clinical translations, his research has helped shape the field of biomedical optics.鈥�

Three new UW members of the academy were selected by virtue of their previous election to one of the National Academies. They are:

• , professor of atmospheric and climate science, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences 鈥渇or contributions to research and expertise in atmospheric radiation and cloud processes, remote sensing, cloud/aerosol/radiation/climate interactions, stratospheric circulation and stratosphere-troposphere exchanges and coupling, and climate change.鈥�
• , the Bartley Dobb professor for the study and prevention of violence in the Department of Epidemiology and a UW professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine 鈥渇or being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden, especially among underserved communities and populations.鈥�
• , division chief of general pediatrics at Seattle Children鈥檚 Hospital and a UW professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine 鈥渇or her leadership in advancing child health equity through scholarship in community-partnered design of innovative care models in pediatric primary care. Her work has transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.鈥�

In addition, Dr. , president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and of the Cancer Consortium 鈥� a partnership between the UW, Seattle Children鈥檚 Hospital and Fred Hutch 鈥� was elected to the academy for being 鈥減art of a research effort that found mutations in the cell-surface protein epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which plays an important role in helping lung cancer cells survive. Today, drugs that target EGFR can dramatically change outcomes for lung cancer patients by slowing the progression of the cancer.鈥�

the Boeing-Egtvedt endowed professor and chair in aeronautics and astronautics, will join the board effective Sept. 30. Morgansen was elected to WSAS in 2021 鈥渇or significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems,鈥� and 鈥渇or leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.鈥� She is currently director of the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, co-director of the UW Space Policy and Research Center and chair of the AIAA Aerospace Department Chairs Association. She is also a member of the WSAS education committee.

鈥淚 am excited to serve on the WSAS board and work with WSAS members to leverage and grow WSAS鈥檚 impact by identifying new opportunities for WSAS to collaborate and partner with the state in addressing the state鈥檚 needs,鈥� said Morgansen.

The new members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences will be formally inducted in September.

Three professors at the 天美影视传媒 have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of excellence in the fields of health and medicine, along with a commitment to volunteer service. Election to the Academy is considered one of the most prestigious honors in health and medicine.

Dr. , a professor of epidemiology and of pediatrics; Dr. , a professor of pediatrics; and , an affiliate professor of biochemistry, were among the 100 new members .

鈥�This is a tremendous and well-deserved honor for each of these valued members of the UW community,鈥� UW Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio said. 鈥淎ll three听are all visionary leaders in their vital fields, and their commitment to creating a better world through their work exemplifies the impact we strive for at the University of Washington.鈥�

Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar was recognized for his research on gun violence, which the Academy said has “deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm.” His work integrates data from health care and criminal justice systems to better understand risk factors related to gun violence and injury. That research has informed policies and programs aimed at reducing the risk of firearm-related harm, particularly in underserved and overlooked communities.

He is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Prevention of Violence and interim director of the in the UW School of Medicine.

Dr. Coker heads the General Pediatrics department at Seattle Children’s Hospital and is co-director of the . Her research focuses on eliminating health and health care disparities for Black and Latinx children, as well as families in low-income communities. The Academy cited her leadership in advancing child health equity and work that has “transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

She is the founder and former director of the Health Equity Research Program at Seattle Children’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity.

Zeng is executive vice president and director of the in Seattle. The Academy recognized her leadership of a team whose work has led to “transformative understanding of cell type diversity” by generating large-scale, open-access datasets and tools for use in neuroscience research.

Seven UW faculty members have been elected to the Academy in the past four years.

For more information or to contact any of the honorees, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.听

doesn鈥檛 want her work to scare people. It鈥檚 already unsettling when wildfire smoke descends upon a community, when eyes burn and throats scratch and people trickle into emergency rooms. She鈥檇 rather people see her research, which ties wildfire smoke to an increased risk of emergency department visits, as a step toward protecting themselves. 听

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 useful to see it as more information, and use that to help us figure out what we can do to protect ourselves,鈥� said Doubleday, who completed the research while working toward her doctorate in environmental health at the UW and now works on air quality for the Washington State Department of Health. 鈥淔or me the takeaway is we鈥檙e all at risk of health impacts. Obviously some more than others, such as those with pre-existing respiratory or cardiovascular conditions, but we all should be taking steps to reduce exposure and watching for any symptoms.鈥�听

That’s the crux of two papers recently published in Environmental Research: Health by researchers at the 天美影视传媒, which found an increased risk of hospital service encounters in the days following wildfire smoke events. Taken together, their findings suggest that wildfire smoke poses a risk to people of all ages, not just young children and older adults. 听

The researchers found that the risk of respiratory-related emergency department encounters increased most sharply for those between the ages of 19 and 64. The findings suggest that public health messaging should also target younger and middle-aged adults, who may not see themselves as vulnerable to wildfire smoke. 听

鈥淲e do have this younger age group in there who may think they鈥檙e invincible, or that the risk messaging doesn鈥檛 apply to them because they鈥檙e not very young or elderly,鈥� said , teaching professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW and co-author of both papers. Isaksen is also co-director of the , which has produced a string of papers on the risks of wildfire smoke. 听

鈥淜nowing that essentially all age groups are at risk of negative health outcomes during wildfire smoke events is an important finding and a shift in how we think of who is vulnerable in our population during these events,鈥� Busch Isaksen said. 鈥淚 expect these results will be informative to public health risk communication strategies aimed at reducing wildfire smoke exposure in all age groups through behavior change such as limiting time outdoors, actively cleaning your indoor air, etc. 鈥�听

The first study, led by Doubleday and , analyzed emergency department (ED) data from hospitals across Washington state. It found an increased risk of respiratory-related ED visits, including visits for asthma, in the five days following a smoke event. Researchers also observed a delayed increase in the odds of cardiovascular-related ED visits. 听

The analysis also found a correlation between the amount of smoke in the air and the risk of ED encounters. For every 10 碌g尘鈭�3 increase in the concentration of fine particle pollution 鈥� PM 2.5 or particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or smaller 鈥� the odds of ED visits rose accordingly. 听

The second study, led by recent UW graduate , is among the first to document the health effects of wildfire smoke on children in Washington state. , it analyzed 15 years of data from Seattle Children鈥檚 Hospital鈥檚 emergency department and in-patient hospital admissions, comparing rates of visits on days with and without smoke. 听

Researchers linked wildfire smoke events to a 7% increase in the odds of all-cause hospital admissions. Notably, the odds of hospitalization remained elevated in the week after smoke events, highlighting the need to monitor children鈥檚 symptoms well after exposure.听

鈥淲e definitely want to be more cognizant of exposure when it comes to children during wildfire smoke season,鈥� said Iyaz, who earned a master鈥檚 in environmental health from the UW and now works in extreme heat mitigation for King County. 鈥淎fter children are exposed to wildfire smoke, keep monitoring symptoms for a couple of days, because they can lag, especially if there are underlying health conditions that might contribute.鈥�听

The study did not find any change in visits to the emergency department, which researchers attributed to the unique population served by Seattle Children鈥檚. As a Level I trauma center, the hospital draws medically complicated cases from across the region, so its patients may be at greater risk of hospitalization than the general population. Parents may also be more likely to bring a sick child to the nearest emergency room, where their visit wouldn鈥檛 be captured by this specific dataset.听

Even before these papers were published, the findings began to show real-world impacts on public health.听Iyaz designed an easy-to-read summary of how smoke can affect children鈥檚 health, so patients鈥� families can better prepare for future events. 听

鈥淲ildfire smoke days are relatively new, and not all people may understand them,鈥� Iyaz said. 鈥淚f people aren鈥檛 aware of what wildfire smoke is and the impacts it can have, that makes it more important to meet communities where they are and talk about what the health effects can be.鈥�听

For more information, contact Busch Isaksen at tania@uw.edu, or visit the

The first of research led by the 天美影视传媒 into handgun carrying by young people growing up in rural areas has found six distinct patterns for when and how often these individuals carry a handgun.

The patterns, or 鈥渓ongitudinal trajectories,鈥� suggest that youths in rural areas differ in some ways from their urban counterparts when it comes to handgun carrying and provide information for programs designed to help prevent firearm violence and injury.

鈥淏ecause firearms in many rural areas are such an integral part of a robust gun culture, understanding how youth engage with firearms in those settings is incredibly important,鈥� said principal investigator and senior author听, a UW professor of epidemiology and the UW Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence. 鈥淪trikingly, until now there has been almost no research into the longitudinal patterns of handgun carrying in rural areas.鈥�

In these communities, young people carry handguns at nearly twice the rate as in urban settings, the researchers point out. And urban youths and rural youths do not necessarily have the same cultural context, motivations and use of firearms.

鈥淎 key takeaway of our study is that about one in three youth in rural areas report carrying a handgun by age 26,鈥� said , lead author and acting assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine who holds a doctorate in economics. 鈥淪o, this is a prevalent behavior among these youth during adolescence and early adulthood. For those who carry, about half say they did so only one time, but another portion is carrying quite frequently, 40 times or more a year.鈥�

Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this study of handgun carrying among youth in rural areas is based on interviews with roughly 2,000 young people who started answering survey questionnaires in the sixth grade. Participants took repeated surveys over a roughly 15-year period, 2005 to 2019, as part of the 鲍奥鈥檚听. That larger study is designed to evaluate the university鈥檚听听program, which helps communities take a broad approach to preventing youth problem behaviors.

These study results are the first in a series of related UW studies that are funded by the CDC and part of a wider range of focusing on firearm violence and injury prevention. Investigators at the UW Social Development Research Group, Washington State University, Seattle Children鈥檚 Research Institute and Arizona State University collaborated on the current UW study.

The researchers identified these six patterns, which are based on 10 chronological waves of survey data (click on each image for a description):

The researchers add that in these patterns of carrying that emerged over the 10 nearly annual waves of surveys, some participants reported first carrying at an early age, as young as 12 years old. Consequently, they said, educating young adolescents about firearms, firearm violence, injury and conflict resolution may be suitable, especially if it connects to the firearm culture of that community.

鈥淐ertainly this behavior is very episodic, but adolescence is the age when other behaviors such as bullying and physical violence emerge,鈥� said Ellyson, who is also a principal investigator at Seattle Children鈥檚 Research Institute . 鈥淐arrying a handgun concurrently with bullying or physical violence may increase the risk, and those behaviors could escalate into more severe violence. More research is needed to measure the potential consequences and health risks of handgun carrying.鈥�

The study emphasizes that nearly all current interventions focused on handgun carrying are related to crime, which may not work for most youth in rural settings, where handgun carrying may occur with different motivations, circumstances and consequences.

鈥淏efore this study, we knew that there is a certain fraction of youth in rural areas who carry handguns,鈥� said Rowhani-Rahbar, co-director of the at the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center. 鈥淏ut with this study, we provided evidence that there are distinctive and different patterns of handgun carrying. The discovery of these patterns in rural areas is the first step toward prevention, because knowing when this behavior starts as well as its frequency and duration may provide important points of intervention for injury prevention.鈥�

In 2020, for the first time in nearly 30 years, the CDC听听$7.8 million in funding for more than a dozen national studies to understand and prevent firearm violence. The 鲍奥鈥檚 proposal to study handgun carrying among rural adolescents was awarded roughly $1.5 million. The current study is one of four areas of focus in the 鲍奥鈥檚 proposal and involved surveys from 12 communities across 7 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Next, the UW researchers will focus on improving understanding of the cultural context of handgun carrying among young people in rural areas. What are the reasons they pick up a handgun? What are the settings in which they do? What does 鈥渃arrying鈥� a handgun mean to them? After that, the researchers hope to examine what happened before a person carried and what happened after. What were the consequences? Finally, they hope to test the effectiveness of the Communities That Care prevention program.

鈥淭here is a very strong safety culture around the use of firearms in rural areas, and some of these young people are very well exposed to and trained in the safe use and handling of firearms, but some of them are not,鈥� said Rowhani-Rahbar. 鈥淭his type of research really sheds light on the fact that you have to think about context, you have to think about setting, you need to consider community-based factors that should drive and inform the prevention efforts that you design.鈥�

Co-authors are Emma Gause and Julia Schleimer, with the Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, UW Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center; Vivian Lyons, with the UW Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan; Schleimer, also Department of Epidemiology, UW School of Public Health; Margaret Kuklinski, John Briney and Kevin Haggerty, Social Development Research Group, UW School of Social Work; Sabrina Oesterle, Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, School of Social Work, Arizona State University; and Elizabeth Weybright, Department of Human Development, Washington State University.

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For more information, contact Rowhani-Rahbar at rowhani@uw.edu.

Brian Donohue, public information editor at UW School of Medicine, contributed to this story.

The pandemic has left nurses around the country feeling . Their top four feelings, according to a recent ? Exhausted, overwhelmed, irritable and anxious or unable to relax.

UW News spoke with , a UW School of Nursing associate professor听and a Nurse Scientist in Resiliency at听Seattle Children鈥檚 Hospital, to learn more about the conditions that lead to burnout and solutions.

Walsh explains burnout is characterized by physical, mental and emotional exhaustion and can involve a feeling of disconnection or depersonalization.

鈥淧eople who experience burnout can have physical symptoms such as headaches, GI problems and difficulty with sleep,鈥� Walsh said. 鈥淎 general way to characterize job burnout among nurses is that demands exceed personal resources. There are many reasons for this 鈥� working with complex patients and families, witnessing emotional and physical suffering and death, staffing shortages and being asked to do more with less time and fewer resources.鈥�

How has the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the conditions that lead to burnout?听

EW: COVID-19 has put a tremendous stress on health care systems. In hospitals, nurses are responsible for round-the-clock care of patients. In community settings, nurses do everything from mounting a public health response to triaging questions about symptoms and about vaccinations. The fact that concerns and consequences of COVID-19 are part of nurses鈥� lives at and away from work is an added stressor. In other words, the issues and worries related to the pandemic do not end at work. Concerns about what is and is not safe away from work, exposing family members and friends, and in some cases needing to isolate from family and friends, are an additional stress.

How do you approach the problem of burnout in nursing?

It is very important to address the causes of burnout, but many of these are at a system, or even societal, level. Providing adequate staffing, breaks and support is important at an organizational level. Increasing self-care and resilience is an individual strategy, and this often involves what might sometimes feel 鈥渟elfish鈥� 鈥� taking time away, prioritizing one鈥檚 own needs, saying no 鈥� but it is in fact critically important to decreasing burnout and increasing resilience.

What are your basic tips for improving resilience?

Resilience requires space to engage in self-care, planned strategies that can be used during stressful times and ways to recharge physically and emotionally. What works for one person might not work for another person. We talk about having strategies for in the moment, at the end of the day and for the longer term. Having the strategies is a good start, but it is important for individuals, teams and organizations to commit to engaging in these strategies and providing space for people to engage in these strategies.

What are the key 鈥渟elf-care鈥� points you make to nurses, or really anyone experiencing burnout or high stress?

Self-care is a mindset and takes commitment. The time and energy required for self-care are difficult to muster when a person experiences burnout or stress. That is where having a plan, having support from colleagues and commitment on the part of an organization is critical.

We know that those who take care of themselves take better care of others. Research is clear that those who are burned out or experiencing a great deal of stress do not provide optimal patient care, are more prone to mistakes and are at risk for leaving a job or even leaving the profession. It is also important to be able to ask for help and support, which means there need to be adequate support resources and a culture in the organization that normalizes taking breaks, asking for help, noticing when others are beginning to struggle and lowering the bar for what counts as a difficult situation.

There appears to be a growing awareness of mental health as an important factor in not only personal health but the health of populations. How do mental health issues in the general population affect nurses on the job?

When we work with nursing students, we discuss the fact that every nurse, regardless of setting or population with which they work, needs mental health skills. We cannot treat the mind and the body in isolation. This is true for patients and for nurses. We know that the pandemic has challenged the mental health of everyone, and those who already struggle with mental health issues are at additional risk. So, nurses are working with more people who have mental health challenges, and they themselves are not immune to those challenges. The notion of caring for the caregiver is not new. There are organizations and centers dedicated to supporting nurses and our health care colleagues, and this is encouraging.

What can we as citizens and policymakers do to help nurses?

Nurses need to be paid adequately for the work they do. Some would argue that it is impossible to put a value on the work nurses do, but it is clear that some organizations and locations pay less than average. That makes it difficult to hire and retain people. We also need more nurses in most settings, and that begins with having faculty to teach and clinical sites for training. We, and many other nursing schools, do not have the faculty resources or clinical placements needed to train all who are qualified. In addition, patients need to be cared for by nurses who represent the diversity of our patient populations. This requires outreach, support for individuals from underrepresented populations to attend school, and assistance so that education is affordable.

Ways to do this include funding colleges and universities to expand nursing programs, providing funding to support student scholarships and recruiting students who will help us develop a more diverse workforce. We know that a more diverse workforce also supports more innovative problem solving, which benefits patients, healthcare organizations, communities and society in general.

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To speak with Professor Walsh, contact emwalsh@uw.edu.

While waiting for free firearm storage devices at gun safety events held in sporting goods stores across Washington, nearly 3,000 people filled out a one-page survey asking how they stored guns at home and other household information.

What the participants reported emphasizes the need for these public events, Seattle Children’s and 天美影视传媒 researchers say, because 40% of gun owners at the events reported having at least one firearm in their home that was not locked up. In addition, 39% of survey takers indicated they kept a loaded gun at home, and 14% stored all guns unlocked and loaded.

鈥淓ven in this population, which clearly had some interest in or awareness of firearm safety, there was a high prevalence of unlocked firearms,鈥� said lead author , who worked on the study while a graduate student at the 鲍奥鈥檚 School of Public Health and as an intern with Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center’s summer research program.

Furthermore, results of surveys conducted at the events in 10 Washington cities between 2015 and 2018 determined that the presence of children in the home did not make a difference. The study is and is part of the February 2020 edition of the journal Preventative Medicine.

The firearm safety events were put on by Seattle Children’s in partnership with UW Medicine鈥檚 , public health agencies, local hospitals in each city, community organizations and coalitions.

In addition to taking a survey and receiving a free firearm lockbox or trigger lock, people at the public events received training on safe firearm storage and proper use of storage devices. The events were held in Monroe, Tacoma, Kirkland, Wenatchee, Seattle, Lacy, Mount Vernon, Moses Lake, Silverdale and Federal Way.

鈥淭he purpose of the events is to increase the use of safe firearm storage, an evidence-based strategy to reduce firearm related injuries and deaths,鈥� said Elizabeth Bennett, co-author and director of community health and engagement at Seattle Children鈥檚. 鈥淥ur goal is to create a comfortable environment to learn about locking up firearms and to have the devices ready to use right away.鈥�

Public gun safety events are an effective tool for improving the safety of kids living around firearms, a found, and the events reach an key audience: male gun owners.

This is an important demographic to reach, King said, because men make up the majority of gun owners and typically take responsibility for how guns are stored in the home. When gun safety interventions are held in pediatrician offices or similar clinic settings, most parents or guardians who attend .

Importantly, nearly all of the roughly 3,000 who submitted surveys said they planned to use the free safety device within the following week. Storing firearms locked and unloaded, the researchers point out, is associated with a greater-than 70% reduction in risk of unintentional and self-inflicted firearm injuries among young people.

King, who is currently a project coordinator at Columbia University, added that when it comes to firearm storage some adults might think that younger children don鈥檛 know where the guns are or don鈥檛 know how to access them, but that is not always the case.

鈥淎 lot of times, the kids do know,鈥� King said. 鈥淎lso, guardians might think that training adolescents or older children is enough to keep them safe, that training means they don鈥檛 have to lock their guns. Unfortunately, a lot of adolescents are at high risk of suicide, and unlocked guns add to that risk 鈥� regardless of training.鈥�

Co-authors include , Department of Global Health, UW schools of Medicine and Public Health; ,听the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Department of Epidemiology, UW School of Public Health; Joseph Simonetti, University of Colorado School of Medicine and Veterans Health Administration, Colorado; and Cassie Simeona and Lauren Staneck, Seattle Children鈥檚.

Learn more about the 鲍奥鈥檚 Population Health Initiative: a 25-year, interdisciplinary effort to bring understanding and solutions to the biggest challenges facing communities.

Anesthesia is a delicate, complex process, and for patients undergoing surgery, the administration of medications at the right time and dosage can be a matter of life and death.

How medications are arranged on an anesthesia cart for administering to patients during operations has historically tended to vary depending on the anesthesiologist and how and where they were trained.

But in recent years, physicians at have worked with design faculty members in the 天美影视传媒 Division of to come up with a better, safer, more reliable way to order and use drugs on an operating room’s anesthesia cart.

It’s called the Anesthesia Medication Template, and is a standardized, three-dimensional arrangement of critical medications informed by workflow that makes identifying drugs easier and thus increases patient safety. It was created by , UW associate professor of interaction design, in cooperation with and other physicians at Children’s, using best practices in design, and has been tested and refined over the years.

“Historically there has never been a recognized standard for presenting or organizing anesthesia medications in a workspace,” Grigg wrote. “Some workspaces are cluttered and filled with extraneous, distracting items.听Others may be organized but in an esoteric way that other providers would not quickly recognize, especially in an emergency.”

The Anesthesia Medication Template, he wrote, is an attempt to combine design expertise with “our unique clinical workflow” to create “a standardized layout that makes identifying anesthesia medications easier and increases patient safety.”

Grigg was lead among several authors 鈥� including Roesler 鈥� of a 2017 about the design and its effectiveness in a two-year study in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia. The two also about the need for “a new vision,” such as the template in handling anesthesia medication.

Now, Roesler is lead author on a new in the International Journal of Design. Grigg is a co-author as are fellow Children’s physicians Drs. , , , and . Another co-author is , a former UW art faculty member now at Arizona State University.

The template was made live for operating room use in 2014. Roesler wrote that with about four years of data available, the device “has nearly eliminated syringe swaps and miscalculation errors at Seattle Children’s Hospital over its first 2.5 years in use and it has reduced the incidence of medication-related harm.”

Grigg added that a fifth year of data has since been gathered, “and the same trend holds.” He added, “I think we had one or two syringe swaps during that time, when they used to happen every few months.”

Roesler wrote: “Such a sustained reduction in errors in the operating room is almost unheard of with a single, analog device. This has had an enormous impact on the overall safety of providing anesthesia at Seattle Children’s Hospital.”

“The complementary design knowledge and understanding of anesthesia workflow could only be integrated by the close collaboration between designers and anesthesiologist and [the] interdisciplinary teamwork in multiple phases of this project.”

He said the device is now in use in all 19 operating suites at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and is being adopted by other hospitals in the United States as well.

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For more information, contact Roesler at roesler@uw.edu or Grigg at egrigg@uw.edu.

More than 4 million reports of child maltreatment involving about 7.5 million children were made in 2017 to Child Protective Services. While much work has been done to reduce these high rates of child abuse and neglect in the United States, few programs have been consistently effective.

Now, new research from the 天美影视传媒 suggests that expanding Medicaid may help prevent child neglect. After the expansion of Medicaid in 2014, mandated by the Affordable Care Act, there were 422 fewer cases of neglect per 100,000 children under the age of 6 reported each year in states that expanded Medicaid than in states that did not. The was published June 14 in .

鈥淥ur study provides another example of a social policy, in this case Medicaid expansion, being associated with reduced child maltreatment, specifically child neglect rates,鈥� said lead author , acting assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine, who conducted the study for her master鈥檚 thesis in health services at the UW School of Public Health.

Policies involving paid family leave, child care access and continuity of child health care have previously been linked to reduced rates of child maltreatment, a broad term encompassing physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect.

Medicaid is the nation鈥檚 main public health insurance program for people with low income. In January 2014, 24 states and Washington, D.C., expanded their Medicaid programs to all U.S. residents with household incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level 鈥� about $16,245 for an individual in 2015. Seven other states expanded Medicaid a few years later.

Researchers analyzed data for the 31 Medicaid expansion states and compared it to data for the 19 states that opted out. They included data for 2010 through 2016 to capture trends in maltreatment rates for several years before and after Medicaid expansion. The association between Medicaid expansion and rates of child neglect was seen even after controlling for other factors, including state-level policies and measures.

Previous research has linked the 2014 Medicaid expansion to parental financial stability and access to mental health care, 鈥渋mportant risk factors for maltreatment,鈥� according to the new study. Findings from this study 鈥渙ffer a promising avenue for future child neglect prevention research, especially as new states expand Medicaid,鈥� the study鈥檚 authors wrote. They say future research should focus on understanding exactly how this relationship occurs, to determine whether expanding Medicaid indeed helps prevent child neglect and whether future expansions could be designed to bolster this outcome.

No associations were found between Medicaid expansion and rates of reported physical abuse. Researchers say this could be because there simply isn鈥檛 one, suggesting that at least some of the pathways resulting in physical abuse are different from those resulting in neglect. Alternatively, a link may exist, but the study could not capture it perhaps because it is only seen after more time has lapsed.

鈥淚nsufficient statistical power may also be an issue,鈥� said senior author , Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the UW and associate professor of epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health. 鈥淣eglect is far more common than is physical abuse and as such, the statistical power to find an association with neglect, if it truly exists, is greater.鈥�

Another finding of the study: From 2013 to 2016, Medicaid coverage for adults with dependent children increased by a median 4.2 percent in states that expanded Medicaid and by 1.9 percent in states that did not. This confirms prior studies showing Medicaid expansion led to expanded Medicaid coverage.

Researchers used state-level demographic and maltreatment data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child Files to compare the change in physical abuse and neglect rates in states that chose to expand Medicaid versus those that did not. The dataset also included data for all child maltreatment reports investigated by Child Protective Services.

Co-authors are Michelle Garrison, associate professor of health services at the UW School of Public Health and research associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UW Medicine; Carole Jenny, professor of pediatrics at UW Medicine; and Hao Bao and Pingping Qu from Seattle Children鈥檚 Research Institute.

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